ETHC 232 Week 6 Discussion | Devry University
- Devry University / ETHC 232
- 06 Oct 2022
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- Humanities Assignment Help / moral and ethics
ETHC 232 Week 6 Discussion | Devry University
Week 6: Whistleblowers
This week we will consider ethical conflicts through the lens of
whistleblowing. The term whistleblower goes back hundreds of years, and may
have originally referred to British police officers, or Bobbies, who were known
to blow a whistle to alert the public to a crime in progress or a potential
danger. Today, a whistleblower is anyone with insider information of wrongdoing
who shares that information with someone outside the organization. With that in
mind, consider the following case study.
Frank Camps was a principal design engineer for the Ford Pinto,
an inexpensive compact car that was popular in the 1970s, but today is widely
considered to be one of the worst, most dangerous automobiles ever made by a
major car maker. Under pressure from management, he participated in coaxing the
Pinto windshield through government tests by reporting only the rare successful
tests and by using a Band-Aid fix design that resulted in increased hazard to
the gas tank. In 1973, undergoing a crisis of conscience in response to reports
of exploding gas tanks, he wrote memos to top management stating his view that
Ford was violating federal safety standards. However, it took six years before
his recommendations for redesign were finally incorporated into the 1979 model.
By that time, nearly 1 million Pintos with unsafe windshields and gas tanks
were put on the road. Shortly after writing his memos, he was given lowered
performance evaluations, then demoted several times. He resigned in 1978 when
it became clear his prospects for advancement at Ford were nil. He filed a
lawsuit based in part on age discrimination, in part on trying to draw further
attention to the dangers.
Considering all of the circumstances, how would you evaluate
Frank Camps' actions from an ethical point of view? Was he correct to try to
stay inside the system for several years, as he did, or should he have blown
the whistle much earlier and taken his concerns to the government or the media?
In other words, should he be credited for speaking up internally, or blamed for
not speaking up more loudly and quickly?
Try to put yourself in Camps' shoes? Would you
have done anything differently than Camps? Would you have blown the whistle?
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